Bigger role for pharmacists worries doctors

This article could replace every reference of New Zealand and change it to Canada and it could be published in a Canadian paper. The issues seem to be the same around the world.

From the New Zealand Herald News:
Pharmacists' calls for more healthcare responsibility could have dangerous consequences if patients stopped seeing their GP, the head of the Medical Association has warned.

Peter Foley's comments follow the Pharmacy Guild's push for more funding, as part of a review of its district health board contracts, to act as a first point of contact in administering some health care.

Health Minister Tony Ryall said this week the Government was in talks with pharmacists about them playing a bigger role in tending to the sick.

Pharmacy Guild chief executive Annabel Young said pharmacists wanted to be given the right to help patients in managing chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and asthma through health counselling and guidance on prescribed medicine use. They also wanted to be able to carry out medicine-use reviews, which involve monitoring patients' use of prescribed medication to ensure better results and cut the costs of unused medication. ...more

New law to force pharmacies to close for lunch?

From Stuff.co.nz:
A new law about rest breaks may force some pharmacies to close for lunch, the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand says.

Changes to the Employment Relations Act come into force tomorrow, meaning a person working more than four hours is entitled to an unpaid half-hour meal break.

Pharmacy Guild chief executive Annabel Young said under the Medicines Act a pharmacy must be operated with the "immediate supervision and control of a pharmacist".

This meant small pharmacies where only one pharmacist worked would have to close when that person took a lunch break, she said.

However, a spokesman for Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson said the Act covered this kind of situation.

"Our advice from the Department of Labour is that the legislation is flexible enough to deal with these concerns in that if breaks can't be scheduled due to certain requirements or commitments then they should be taken 'where reasonable and practicable'." ...more

Pharmac hits back at talk of stinginess

From Stuff.co.nz:
Medicine funding is "not about counting votes" or making popular decisions, says Pharmac chief executive Matthew Brougham.

In the national drug-buying agency's annual review, Mr Brougham hit back at accusations of stinginess.

This month the Government took the unprecedented step of bypassing Pharmac's independent decision-making process to directly fund 12 months' of the costly breast cancer drug Herceptin.

Earlier this year, a group of cancer patients took Pharmac to court over its decision to offer just nine weeks' treatment.

The High Court ordered Pharmac to do more "public consultation", which attracted more than 300 submissions, but did not overturn the original decision.

Mr Brougham said Pharmac was making efforts to improve the way it consulted with and relayed its decisions to the public. ...more

Thyroid drug alternative here

From the Otago (NZ) Daily Times:
An unsubsidised alternative to a controversial thyroid drug went into pharmacies throughout the country yesterday, on the eve of a Medsafe announcement on its progress in finding a replacement medicine.

At noon today, Medsafe will report on its moves to find another drug as an alternative to Eltroxin, which is used by an estimated 70,000 people in the country who suffer from an under-active thyroid gland (hypothyroidism).

Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton said yesterday in Parliament an alternative would be available within a few weeks.

Two had been offered.

More than 830 reports of side effects from Eltroxin had been received by the Centre for Adverse Reactions Monitoring in Dunedin since the formulation of the drug was changed last year, although the active component was not altered. ...more

Prescriptions to go electronic

From Stuff.co.nz:
Scribbled doctors' prescriptions look to be on the way out with the Health Ministry set to pilot electronic prescribing next year.

Electronic prescribing will let GPs send prescriptions to pharmacies online, in a move the ministry says will help reduce medical errors.

Nelson woman Hilda Sixtus died in 2006 after she was allegedly prescribed a powerful anti-cancer drug with incorrect dosage instructions.

Pharmacists have said patients are at risk from errors in some existing software used to manage prescriptions, which could lead to incorrect doses being prescribed.

Alan Hesketh, deputy director of the ministry's information directorate, says electronic prescribing will reduce the risk of incorrect drugs being prescribed through the use of a common medications list – which will contain standardised doses, forms, strengths and instructions for medicines.

Health practitioners and patients will be able to access a complete electronic pharmaceutical history, showing what drugs people have taken and when. ...more

Medical subsidies wrongly given to non-residents

From Consumer.org.nz:
Taxpayers are unknowingly subsidising pharmacy prescriptions for tourists and international students possibly to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, Consumer NZ has found.

Chief executive, Sue Chetwin, says many people in New Zealand on visitors or students permits are getting subsidised pharmacy medicines they're not entitled to. And the sums involved could be substantial. Last year, 173, 675 visitors' permits and 96, 473 student permits were issued.

Ms Chetwin says the problem stems from software designed by Medtech Global, which the company claims is used in 75 percent of primary practices.

General practitioners use Medtech's software to generate prescriptions for patients. But the software cannot identify non-residents who are not entitled to subsidised pharmacy medicines. It currently codes these patients as being eligible for subsidies.

The software fault means pharmacists filling prescriptions for visitors and students are charging them a subsidised rate. Pharmacists then claim the subsidy from the Ministry of Health. The problem also extends to lab tests. ...more

Morning-after pills trial in second year

From the Waikaton (NZ) Times:
The morning-after pill has been free to Waikato women for the past year and the pharmacy trial was so successful it has been extended for another year.

This week, Auckland District Health Board decided to support a scheme allowing pharmacists to provide the emergency contraceptive pill to young women free, but it's not a New Zealand first.

In the Waikato, a pilot project allowing 3000 pharmacy consultations to supply the pill free to women under 25, was funded by Waikato District Health Board from April last year. The budget for the scheme was $90,000.

Waikato Community Pharmacy Group chief executive Cath Knapton said the scheme was not advertised but, through word-of-mouth, the number of morning-after pills being given out by Waikato pharmacists had increased dramatically in the past 12 months. ...more

Free morning-after pill to go on trial

From the New Zealand Herald:
Auckland women are only a few months away from being able to go to their pharmacist and get free, unlimited access to the morning-after pill.

The Auckland District Health Board decided at a board meeting yesterday to support the scheme, detailed in the Herald on Tuesday.

Any woman, of any age, will be able to make use of the $300,000 scheme during its trial period.

The pills will be available to whoever has a need, and will not be restricted to limited numbers for each woman.

Women will be asked to provide some personal details when they receive the free pill from their pharmacist. Those details will be used to determine the success of the pilot scheme, and will not be placed on medical records. ...more